Our God Gets It Done, and so do we June 10/18 Wildwood Colossians 3:23-24; 2 Kings 5:1-5; 1 Samuel 25 Our Creator God

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1 Our God Gets It Done, and so do we June 10/18 Wildwood Colossians 3:23-24; 2 Kings 5:1-5; 1 Samuel 25 Earlier in the service, Audrey noted that today we are focusing on our God who takes care of business and gets things done. Among God s people, made in God s image, this dimension is reflected in the Type 3 personality, the Achiever, Performer or Motivator. Not being an expert on the Enneagram, I looked up some helpful quickies. You may have heard various takes on how many Baptists, Presbyterians or Mennonites it takes to screw in a light bulb. I wondered about Type 3 s, and found the following answers: One, he or she holds the lightbulb up and the room revolves around him or her. Another agreed that it would be one, but explained that someone has to be watching. Another disagreed, saying that it would take two with different inclinations or wings. The Three with individualist Type four wings would go out and buy the best and brightest bulb. Then the Three with Type two Helper tendencies would screw it in and take all the credit for brightening up the room! Ouch! I m a Three! When I took the Enneagram Test several months ago, I found myself described by that category, complete with its warts and wonders. In some senses, my theme verse could be the one that was read earlier, Colossians 3:23 Whatever your task, put yourselves into it, as done for the Lord and not for your masters. My middle name is James, a form of the biblical name Jacob. Several students of the Bible and the Enneagram suggest that biblical characters like Jacob would be the classic example of that type, Type 3 The Achiever. Like Jacob, my personality type tries to get its sense of worth and lovableness from what we can cook up, by what we do, even if that means needing a few skins to cover our smoothness. This morning, as we continue this series on Stained Glass Windows of Divine Light, we focus on that dimension of God, and of people, who love building things, restoring things, making things happen. Our Creator God A century ago, the gifted Afro-American poet, James Weldon Johnson, spent time travelling through the American South visiting in many churches of his people. Out of those journeys came a tribute to his people s faith, God s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse (1927). One of those seven was The Creation. Those of you well steeped in Genesis or with contemporary gender sensitivities may quibble with some his details. Yet, echoing those sermons he heard in southern Black churches, using the folkways and imagery of his people, Johnson has highlighted some key features of those biblical accounts. Johnson begins with God looking out over the darkness of space, blacker than a hundred midnights down in a cypress swamp. God looks out, and laments I m lonely. I ll make me a world. And as God creates light, the universe and earth with all its

2 living things, God takes delight in each act of creation, declaring That s good! Johnson then continues: Then God walked around, And God looked around On all that He had made. He looked at His sun, And He looked at His moon, And He looked at His little stars; He looked on His world With all its living things, And God said, "I'm lonely still." Then God sat down On the side of a hill where He could think; By a deep, wide river He sat down; With His head in His hands, God thought and thought, Till He thought, "I'll make me a man!" Up from the bed of the river God scooped the clay; And by the bank of the river He kneeled Him down; And there the great God Almighty Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky, Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night, Who rounded the earth in the middle of His hand; This Great God, Like a mammy bending over her baby, Kneeled down in the dust Toiling over a lump of clay Till He shaped it in His own image; Then into it He blew the breath of life, And man became a living soul. Amen. Amen

3 Abigail Though my second name is James or Jacob, I find myself identifying more with the experiences of people like Naaman and Abigail, apparent Threes. We find the story of Abigail in 1 Samuel 25. The not yet king David and his guerrilla warriors have been protecting the locals from Philistine attacks. One of those was a wealthy farmer whose very name, Nabal, means fool (the same word as in those passages about the fool who says in his heart there is no God ). Nabal and his servants were in the middle of their sheep shearing, a time of festivities and feasting, when emissaries from David showed up to remind Nabal that they were protecting them and requesting some bread and meat, protection provisions. 1 Samuel records Nabal s surly response and David s: Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants today who are breaking away from their masters. 11 Shall I take my bread and my water and the meat that I have butchered for my shearers, and give it to men who come from I do not know where? 12 So David s young men turned away, and came back and told him all this. 13 David said to his men, Every man strap on his sword! Nabal and his servants are about to be massacred. Enter Abigail, Nabal s wife, described in 1 Samuel as clever and beautiful. She quickly prepares a feast of bread, meat and wine, loads it on donkeys and hurries to intercept David. When they meet, she falls before him, assumes part of the blame, admits that her ill natured husband Nabal has lived down to his name, fool. She then appeals to David s deeper values: 30 When the LORD has done to my lord according to all the good that he has spoken concerning you, and has appointed you prince over Israel, 31 my lord shall have no cause of grief, or pangs of conscience, for having shed blood without cause... David is able to respond: 33 Blessed be your good sense, and blessed be you, who have kept me today from bloodguilt and from avenging myself by my own hand! 34 For as surely as the LORD the God of Israel lives, who has restrained me from hurting you, unless you had hurried and come to meet me, truly by morning there would not have been left to Nabal so much as one male. I aspire to be like Abigail, looking for the best in others, appealing to their better natures and thus helping build a better world. But like Abigail, I often fail to seek and call that forth in the Nabals of my world. She was married to Nabal, so perhaps in our marriage my wife Audrey has that challenge! Naaman Then we have the Syrian General Naaman. 2 Kings 5 tells us that Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favor with his master, because by him the LORD had given victory to Aram. This is a man who gets things done, a great man known for his military skills and accomplishments. I was always much smaller than my older brother, and only once bested him in a fight. One afternoon when he was asleep, I tied his leg to the bedpost, pummeled him,

4 ran and enjoyed 30 seconds of victory! As a bookworm, I earned my praise by getting good marks at school. When I got older, my hobby was gathering one of the most extensive breeding collections of quality pure wild and mutant forms of the Ringneck pheasant. I was what I could do and have, my forms of accomplishment. That script accompanied me into my careers as a teacher, pastor and Intentional Interim. My sense of personal worth has been connected to my sense of making a difference for my students, of helping congregations build something better. Though Naaman was a great man and in high favour because of his accomplishments, (he) suffered from leprosy, that debilitating disease that isolated its sufferers. My leprosies have been less noticeable, perhaps - my early undiagnosed need for glasses, my sense of athletic inferiority, my father s suicide death when I was 13. What I find especially telling in Naaman s story is his journey toward healing. That journey starts with his wife s servant girl, a captive taken during one of Aram s raids on the Israelites. Naaman s first correct step is listening to this seeming nobody within his household, the one who knew about the healer prophet. Being a man of accomplishment, Naaman expects things to be done according to protocol, befitting a man of his stature. His request to his king, the letter that sends Israel s king into a tizzy, his disappointment that the prophet didn t come out and wave his hand over the leprosy, and his initial refusal to bathe in the inferior Jordan almost torpedo the healing. 2 Kings then tells us, But his servants approached and said to him, Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, Wash, and be clean? That does feel rather familiar. I like to get things done, and value working alongside the movers and shakers of a congregation. But it is often those others who pull me up short. I recall candidating in a congregation where they mentioned that after the service, the worship leader, song leader and preacher (and some others) would form a greeting line. I forgot about that and some others part until several Downs Syndrome and other challenged folks lined up for their Sunday hugs. I recall the tingles up and down my spine as I realized how this congregation had caught something of God s kingdom vision. During my 8 th year of teaching, a popular student committed suicide and I was encouraged to be available to his friends. These friends often talked about the night after Jim s funeral. They gathered by the grave in silence, and then, as if on a signal, gave him the finger. This had obviously been a special moment, and fortunately I kept my judgmental mouth shut. As a youth, I had chuffed all those angry feelings about dad s death way down. Only years later, after significant counselling, was I able to head to the cemetery for that long overdue talk, anger and then a new overwhelming sense of compassion and love. Those youth had something very important to teach me, though it took years for the lesson to make sense. Conclusion (8)

5 Our God gets things done. And I resonate with that. Like others of my personality style, I tend to look toward others with the question How am I doing? My challenge, now especially important in retirement, is to recognize that I am beloved of God not for what I accomplish, not for what others see me capable of doing, but because of God s grace. In some senses that is a broader Mennonite challenge as well, whatever our personality styles. We have created highly effective and respected institutions for joining God in God s work of healing, peace and justice - MDS, MCC, MEDA, CPT. As a local congregation, we are about Bringing out the best in each other and our world by preparing space to listen and speak practicing to lead and serve providing support for rest, renewal and growth and provoking one another to love and good deeds as we walk together in the way of Jesus. The challenge, perhaps more for my personality type than for some others, is to remember that last phrase in the way of Jesus. We know God most fully in Jesus who emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in human likeness. (Phil. 2:7) Ours is a God who, to paraphrase James Weldon Johnson, kneels down in the dust like a mammy bending over her baby toiling over us lumps of clay. May we value ourselves and others, however similar or different, as those beloved living souls shaped in God s image who are now privileged to join in God s work of healing and restoration.